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No sleep for hat-trick hero

Peter Crouch admitted he could hardly sleep after firing us into the Champions League on Wednesday night.

Peter Crouch admitted he could hardly sleep after firing us into the Champions League on Wednesday night.

The striker grabbed a hat-trick against Young Boys of Switzerland as the glory, glory nights returned to White Hart Lane.

Trailing 3-2 from the first leg, ‘Crouchy' eased any nerves with the vital opening goal inside five minutes to level the aggregate score at 3-3 and put us ahead in the tie.

Jermain Defoe drilled in the second goal to put us 2-0 up and 4-3 ahead on aggregate before Crouchy bagged his second and third goals for a final 4-0 scoreline on the night, 6-3 on aggregate.

The group stages now await - the draw is at 5pm this evening.

"It's so hard to sleep after a night like that," beamed Crouchy at Spurs Lodge in Thursday morning. "I was absolutely buzzing. I ended up watching the game again, sad as that is!

"It was a great occasion, a fantastic atmosphere and hopefully there will be many more nights like that to come.

"It was so pleasing to get the three goals, but it's really the culmination of all the hard work we put in last season. It would have been bitterly disappointing not to get to the group stages after finishing fourth."

It was put to the England hitman that he must have been in dreamland as Gareth Bale's cross sailed through the air to him, unmarked, six yards out in the fifth minute for that opener.

"My biggest worry was Michael Dawson getting in the way!" he smiled. "He was starting to lean back and stretch for it so I gave him the biggest shout of all-time to leave it, because it was a simple header for me

"It was great to get off to such a good start and it could have been plenty more in the end.

"We were disappointed with what happened in Switzerland but I always felt confident we'd go through. No team will relish coming to White Hart Lane."